India needs to do more on IPR: US govt report

The United States on Monday said that though India has acted against movie and music piracy, it needs to do more on protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR).

“India made limited progress on IPR protection and enforcement in 2011, and its legal framework and enforcement system remain weak,” said a US trade report Special 301 released on Monday.

This is an annual report prepared by the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office on the state of intellectual property rights protections and programs in countries with which it has trading ties — 77 in all.

Forty of these countries are under watch, categorised in three groups. India is on a list of countries called the ‘priority watchlist’, with China, Canada, Israel, Pakistan and eight others.

“The United States notes some improvements with respect to IPR enforcement, including reports of good cooperation of enforcement officials with some in the copyright industry, and increased use of judicial orders that have strengthened enforcement against pirated movies and music online.”

But the report also notes that while online piracy grows, the Copyright Amendment Bill 2010, “which proposed partial implementation of the WIPO Internet Treaties and other reforms appears to have stalled”.

The USTR report said that Indian needs to address “judicial inefficiencies” and “strengthen criminal enforcement” and grant IPR prosecutions greater priority.